The present invention relates to fluid filters such as are widely used in agriculture and in industry for separating dirt particles from water or other fluids. The invention is particularly applicable to a fluid filtering device which may be conveniently cleaned without opening the filter housing.
Many constructions of fluid filtering devices have been proposed to facilitate their cleaning. The common type of filtering device includes a simple manual cleaning arrangement which requires the filter housing to be opened in order to provide access to the filter body, for example filter discs, for cleaning them. Another type of filter includes an automatic cleaning arrangement which, upon sensing an undue build-up of dirt on the filter body, automatically effects a cleaning operation for cleaning the filter. The latter type filter does not require opening the filter housing, but is generally of considerably more complicated construction than the manually-cleanable filter, and is therefore considerably more expensive to produce and also to maintain.
An object of the present invention is to provide a fluid filtering device which does not require opening the housing in order to permit cleaning the filter body, but which is of substantially simpler construction than the automatic filter, and is therefore considerably less expensive to produce and to maintain. The new filter may be called a "semi-automatic cleanable" filter, to be distinguished from the "manually-cleanable" and the "automatically-cleanable" types mentioned above.